A New Art of Healing.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 8 July 1905, Page 22

A New Art of Healing.

Tt was a basis of agreement at one of the famous No<tes Anibrosianae that there is plenty of fine cdnfnsed feeding about a sheep’s head. Similarly, one might remark on the amount of fine confused thinking there is about the average lecture that pretends to blend philanthropy with psychic science. There was an instance at Steinway Hall, when, to an audience that was small enough to be select. Mrs. Northesk Wilson delivered a lantern lecture on “Human Rays: The Secret oT Life” (writes the “Pall Mall Gazette”). As the lecturer reminded us. the field is limitless, so it was not surprising if some of us got lost. M hat we camo away with was the original revelation that we influence one another for good or ill. THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS. I he first half of the lecture was discursive: the secoitd was pictorial. Mrs. Northesk \\ ilson gave an account of her discovery of luminous rays emanating from her fingers, with a digression as to the unfeeling scepticism that may exist in one s own family. A physician when, consulted suggested that there was a chemical in her blood, but was too considerate to mention which. Sir Oliver Lodge, to whom *he wrote, was more nebulous and more polite: in his sympathetic way he called it radio-activity. This emanation, said the lecturer, this odie force, this *piritual p<»w<r. dwelt in all of us. giving off light and colour and healing. As *o»»n as she discovered rhe healing property inherent in her lingers, Mr*. Wilson laid her hands upon a dog. The dog recovered. Then she interviewed an editor; and how much further she

down tM* ae.le of creation we wrre not to learn, for she turned attention to the lantern. \ LI VII > PICTVRES. Wjith the darkness, the sibylline utterances grew in mystery. The lecturer complained that mankind were too negative. She besought her hearers to be positive, and five minutes later to be logical—a transposition well worth noting. This was during the exhibition of the first few slides, one of which looked like a pyramid of smoke with an orange on the top. attd another resembled an explosion of Everton toffee. They were the Wilsonian formulae for certain states of mind. The ideal in life, we were to rise to a higher state in vibration, and here one or t-wo spectator's shook with a responsive emotion that was uncontrollable. A cannibal’s temperament was thrown upon the screen, adumbrating something lictween a fungus and a smashed cigar. We were given in turn the psychic symbols of a vampire, a toast-coloured miser, a fickle person, marked like a backgammon Ixiard. and something else like a windmill of limelights, that was left unexplained for the reason that ‘ it would take till midnight.” THE REWARD OF MERIT.The new gospel of Human Rays is evidently stronger in exordium than in intellectual exposition. The higher forms of emotion or vibration were illustrated by two pictures that had the appearance and hue of bisected melons. A mother kissing her child came out like a cluster of revolving periwinkles, and in the ease of a nun at her devotions the symptoms were similar, but more so. Naturally the higher emotions were a feminine mo'nopoly. It was explained that yellow stood for intellect, green for deceit, brown for selfishness, blushrose for pure love, and blue for something dreadful. Cowardice came out all over spots: but no colour or marking was assigned for the Incredulous Hearer ami we are prepared to learn, that it i, black ami hopeless. After all. it seems too much to ask us Io lead good lives merely that we may figure ou a screen as a kaleidoscopic chrysalis with -an altruistic belt of pink.